_Benjamin Franklin._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _THE DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER._ ONE of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald head and very grey whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses—no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat, with slick brass buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags. The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didn’t know one another. “What got you into trouble?” says the bald-head to t’other chap. “Well, I’d been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth—and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it—but I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out _with_ you. That’s the whole yarn—what’s yourn?” “Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a little temperance revival thar, ’bout a week, and was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies, I _tell_ you, and takin’ as much as five or six dollars a night—ten cents a head, children and niggers free—and business a growin’ all the time; when somehow or another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way of puttin’ in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin’, and told me the people was getherin’ on the quiet, with their dogs and horses, and they’d be along pretty soon and give me ’bout half-an-hour’s start, and then run me down, if they could; and if they got me they’d tar and feather me, and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn’t wait for no breakfast—I warn’t hungry.” “Old man,” says the young one, “I reckon we might double-team it together; what do you think?” “I ain’t undisposed. What’s your line—mainly?” “Jour printer, by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theatre-actor—tragedy, you know; take a turn at mesmerism and phrenology when there’s a chance; teach singing geography school for a change; sling a lecture, sometimes—oh, I do lots of things—most anything that comes handy, so it ain’t work. What’s your lay?” “I’ve done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin’ on o’ hands is my best holt—for cancer, and paralysis, and sich things; and I k’n tell a fortune pretty good, when I’ve got somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preachin’s my line, too; and workin’ camp meetin’s; and missionaryin’ around.”